out there, living in the sun
by hailingstars
Summary: The Avengers rescue Peter from a Hydra base ran by his father, Richard Parker, except Peter doesn't really see it as a rescue, and has trouble settling into a new life away from Hydra and his father at the Avengers compound.
1. Chapter 1

Peter left the manor in a hurry, not even bothering to stop and pick up the ugly vase he'd knocked over on his way out. That was the problem with Peter Parker, as his father would be happy to tell you. He just didn't care.

Didn't care about the manor where he lived, or its history, no matter how many his dad recited it to him. Peter saw past all the myths and stories and great things that were said to have happened there and saw it for what it was in that moment, old and decrepit and rotting from within. Odd pieces of wood stuck out from the interior, stabbing and sticking into anyone who dared to get to close.

They didn't have to worry about that often, though. The manor stood in the middle of a forest, hidden by trees and mountains. No one found it unless they were sent there, or unless they were looking, and not many people were.

Oftentimes Peter complained that he would like to move. He pictured himself in the city, surrounded by people, or in a school, with actual people his age, instead of holed up on the second-floor study with a private tutor.

Oftentimes his dad complained about his complaints. His were wiser, more sophisticated complaints. His complaints always carried the undertone of an order.

"You should be grateful," he'd tell him. "I'm breaking history in this house, and you don't even care. You can't even be bothered to help out in the lab from time to time."

Oftentimes Peter dug his fingernails into his sweaty palms. It was a lot safer than rolling his eyes.

Peter cared less about the lab and his dad's experiments than he did the manor, where they were performed. Didn't care about the screaming he heard through the walls, or how it never seemed to stop, even when he put headphones over his ears. Didn't even care that he _could_ hear through the walls, thanks to Richard's research into cross genetics and that incident with the spider.

Maybe his dad was right, then. Maybe he should feel grateful.

Most people who wound up in his dad's lab left on a stretcher with a thin, white sheet covering their limp, lifeless bodies. Peter didn't care about that, either, if you were wondering. He didn't.

Sometimes their screaming was just annoying. It got to him. Nagged at him, ate away until it drove him out of the manor and into the woods that surrounded it, where if he walked long enough and far enough, he couldn't hear it anymore. Sometimes he just had to escape. Sometimes, like now.

His tennis shoes crunched down against dirt, leaves, twigs, and he tugged his jacket closer to his skin, wishing he'd thought to grab something heavier to throw on before he fled the manor. That was another one of Peter's problems, according to his father. He never really stopped to think things all the way through.

Peter paused on the path when the screaming died down, then cut off altogether. A shiver went down his spine, one he pretended had more to do with the cold than it did with death. He looked around the forest, as if he might be able to spot a ghost if he looked hard enough, before shaking his head and continuing down the path.

"Get it together, Pete," he mumbled to himself, rubbing his temple, the screaming echoing through his thoughts although it was no longer really there.

He took a deep breath, then released, watching the air that flowed from his mouth turn white. Rays of sunlight reflected through the mist, causing Peter to look up at sky and remember something his mother used to say.

"_Fresh air and a little bit of sunlight can fix anything." _

Her voice played through his thoughts, accompanied by her smile. Memories of her that were so blurry, so out of focus and bright, and so filled with something that warmed him up from the inside, that Peter had trouble believing they were memories and not just dreams, not just something his mind fabricated to make it seem like it was possible for things to be fixed.

Real or fake, the memory and the words replayed over and over until his head was clear, until he almost walked straight into the fence that surrounded the property where the manor stood. The metal was rusty, just as the manor was splintery, and completely useless at keeping people out, if they even wanted inside.

Peter couldn't imagine anyone did. He suspected the fence, as tall as it was, was built to keep people in.

A pathetic whining brought Peter's attention to the ground, where he saw a rabbit tangled up in plastic that had once held a six-pack of beers together. The idiotic guards were always out here drinking, but not bothered cleaning up after themselves.

Peter crouched down and hesitantly reached his hand out. "Just don't bite me, okay?"

The rabbit continued whining in response but didn't try to bite him as Peter untangled its paws from the plastic and picked it up, using both hands to cradle it. He stretched out his arms and released it on the other side of the fence, feeling lucky that the animal had the good sense to keep hopping in that direction, away from the manor and the screaming.

Peter watched him go, then picked up the plastic off the ground.

"How endearing."

Peter turned, slow and annoyed, and made his eyes extra cold when he saw it was Whelan speaking to him. He least favorite guard, and Hydra's biggest reject.

A cigarette hung out of his mouth, like usual, and a blank stare crossed his face, also like usual.

"You really shouldn't litter," Peter told him, sliding the plastic into his pocket to throw away once he was home.

Whelan eyed at him. He took the lit cigarette from his mouth and let it fall to the ground. A childish protest, but one Peter couldn't blame him for. His hostility wasn't unprovoked.

Whelan was the subject of Peter's own experiments, which, by his own admission, were much more like juvenile pranks than they were scientific, though he supposed they weren't completely pointless.

He _did_ have a hypothesis. Peter wanted to know how many times he had to turn Whelan's hair purple or nearly burn his tongue off with tempered tooth paste before the man quit his job and left.

Once he made Whelan so ill Richard himself had gotten involved, telling Peter to tone it down. Replacing guards was a hassle, even more of hassle if one was dead. The paperwork, Richard told him, the paperwork would give him a headache.

"The boss wants to talk to you."

"I thought he was busy," said Peter.

"His engagement finished early."

Peter's stomach knotted and bubbled with dread. He hated seeing his father after failed experiments.

He diverted his eyes back to the lit cigarette laying on the ground.

"Don't you know smoking is bad for you?" asked Peter, looking back up. "And the wildlife. You're going to start a fire one of these days."

"Just start walking," Whelan growled out. "Nobody has time for your games today."

"When do they ever?"

Peter's question was met with another growl and with a turned back. Whelan did have the decency to smear the cigarette into the ground with his shoe, putting the fire out, before marching back off into the forest. Peter supposed he could try to be happy about that. He might have been walking off to his doom, but at least he'd won the interaction.

* * *

Wood creaked under Peter's feet as he climbed the stairs up to the manor's second story, heading to his dad's office. The room stood at the end of the hallway, and the door had been left open. That didn't stop Peter from knocking, softly, with the back of his hand, until he was told he could enter.

Richard Parker stood with his back turned, staring out the large window. He was still wearing his white lab coat over his clothes. Peter ignored the small drops of blood splattered across the white, and instead focused on the light streaming in through the window. Light that made the specks of dust floating around sparkle like stars.

"Y-you wanted to see me, dad?" asked Peter, shuffling his feet in place, but refusing to move any closer to the man standing next to the window.

It left a comfortable distance between them, as Richard's office was the largest room in the manor. Once, it had been the master bedroom, but after Peter's mother died, Richard threw out everything all their shared belongings, or at least, everything Peter hadn't secretly smuggled away and hid in the antic.

The bed had been replaced with a large, oak desk that sat crooked in the very center of the room. Piles of books lay open, some of the floor, some on the tattered armchairs, and some piled high on the desk, piled over stacks of loose papers.

"Yes, Peter," said Richard, then turned on his heel. He straightened his coat, and stared Peter down. It made him want to sink into the wood. "I have some good news."

Peter stayed where he was and anchored his expectations to the ground. He and Richard rarely had the same definition of good.

"We're moving."

Then, just like that, with those words, only those words, that anchor started to move, shift in place. Something fluttered around in Peter's stomach, a feeling so unfamiliar he didn't have a name for it, and as much as he tried to pull his excitement back down to reality – what he knew to be reality – the idea of leaving the manor behind left him unable to contain it.

Peter took a couple of steps closer. More floorboards groaned under his feet.

"We're… moving?"

"Yes," said Richard, his voice snapped with annoyance. "That's what I just said. They need me elsewhere. There's a headquarters in Canada with better equipment and better opportunities for you. They have a school, kids your age, sons and daughters of agents. It'll be good for you."

Peter frowned. Logic told him people who worked for Hydra were rarely concerned with having children, and less so about taking care of them and sending them to school, but the idea of having friends, of just having people around who weren't the guards and doomed to his father's lab was powerful. More powerful than logic could ever hope to be.

"So, there's going to be a lot of people there, then? People my age?"

"Yes, so kind of you to keep up," said Richard, turning back towards the window, and making no effort to mask the annoyance in his tone. "Honestly the things you choose to get excited about are troubling, you're delighted by the idea of meeting friends and yet completely ignorant about all the progress I've made being here."

Peter's eyes drifted away from his father and trailed across the wrecked floor, wondering what exactly he meant by progress. People screamed and yelled down in the lab. They died. Some lasted longer than others, but for the most part, it was always the same. Maybe Peter and his dad had different definitions of progress, too.

"Ah, well, guess it can't be helped," continued Richard. He gave Peter another look, up and down, and there was something there in his eyes that didn't seem quite right, that seemed calculating. "Well, run along. Pack a bag. Just the essentials, the movers will get the rest. We leave in the morning."

He nodded, and made a move towards the door, only to pause when his dad stopped him one last time.

"And Peter," he said.

"Yeah, dad?"

"Don't forget to take your dinner supplement," he told him. "It's important to keep your levels up."

"I won't," said Peter, then left without another word.

He headed downstairs to the kitchen, quickly mixed all the correct powders together for a dinnertime nutrient shake and forced it down his throat. It wasn't that bad, if he chugged it fast and rinsed his mouth out with water right after, which was exactly what he did.

Next he snuck up to the attic to retrieve the books he hid there, the books he saved from when his father decided to purge all his mother's things from the manor. Peter blew dust off the cover of an old, tattered book he remembered his mom reading, and decided that it would come with him to wherever he went next.

He packed a bag, then spent the rest of the evening counting the seconds until he would go to sleep, just so he could wake up and be on his way to someplace better.

* * *

Peter's dreams were the same as being awake, filled with screaming that rattled around, loose, in his head, and didn't stop. They weren't the screams of anyone important, but still, they haunted him while he slept, and he couldn't figure out why.

Strangers who died in the manor were not anyone enough to think about during the day, let alone worry about in his sleep. They weren't even people. Not really. His dad had explained that to him a long time ago, that their lives had little meaning outside what they could provide with their deaths.

That he was helping them be useful to humanity, and their unwilling sacrifice was absolutely necessary for scientific advancement.

His dreams were different, though, that night everything changed. It was his mother screaming at him, and her scream was jarring enough to jolt him out of one nightmare and catapult him straight into another.

Peter's eyes opened with a snap. Hovering above his bed were two glowing eyes, attached to a robot-looking man, and there was a metal hand covering his mouth.

"Don't scream," ordered Iron Man. Peter could that it was unmistakably Iron Man in his bedroom, now that his eyes were adjusting. Another man hovered nearby, shuffling his feet.

The hand that covered Peter's mouth moved to his shoulder.

"W-what's happening?" whispered Peter. He wiggled around on his bed, trying to shrug the hand off his shoulder. "Get off me!"

"Calm down, son," said the other man. "We're here to get you out of here."

"Captain America? Get me out of here?" asked Peter, squinting his eyes and tilting his head. Iron Man hoisted him out of bed, and the covers went with him, hitting the floor by Peter's feet. "Oh cool, I'm being kidnapped."

"Not exactly the term I would use."

Peter wanted to ask Captain America if he had a better word for kidnapping but decided he shouldn't waste time slinging words when his fists worked just fine. He took a swung at Iron Man, only it was sloppy from sleep and easily caught by a metal hand. Pain shot through his fist, and when he tried to withdraw it, Iron Man held on tight.

"Out of the two of us," said Iron Man, his robotic voice dull and bored. "Why would you try to take out the one covered in armor?"

"Oh, you know, just testing a theory," answered Peter, trying to pull his hand out of Iron Man's grip. He was disappointed with the conclusion his test brought. He always kind of figured since the spider incident he'd be stronger than Iron Man, stronger than the Avengers. He always thought the was sort of the point.

Briefly he considered, if he ever regained control of his fist, crawling up to the ceiling and staying there until the Avengers either knocked him down with a broom or gave up and left, but unfortunately for Peter, it didn't seem as if Iron Man would ever let go.

"I'm gonna tell you how this is gonna play out, so listen up," said Iron Man. "You're going to come with us, without a fight, or it's gonna get really ugly, really fast."

"Things are already ugly." The words slipped out of Peter's mouth before he could think about them.

Captain America opened his mouth, but not even a syllable left his lips before he was silenced by Iron Man's index finger pointed at him.

"Ugly for you, maybe," said Iron Man. "But if you're quiet, and you come with us, we'll leave your dad and everyone else alone. Just being honest, here, I don't think Richard would survive the type of prison they'll put him in, do you, Cap?"

"Uh, no," he answered, though he hesitated and sounded unsure.

Peter didn't have to think about it to make a decision. He knew where he fell in the Hydra hierarchy, and if it was a choice between him or his dad, Richard was more important, more useful to Hydra doing his research. It was obvious. Peter didn't even really a choice, especially now that he saw he was outmatched.

"Fine, I'll go with you," said Peter. Iron Man immediately let go of his hand at his answer, causing him to stumble backwards and catch sight of his bag, packed and ready for a new life in a place.

It figured the night before he was about to get everything he always wanted something like this would happen. Parker luck.

Peter beckoned towards his bag on the floor. "Can I at least take my stuff?"

"Got any weapons? Any traceable electronics?"

"No."

Unless a book was a weapon, Peter had nothing of the sort, though now he wished he had packed one.

He thought Iron Man might ask to search his bag, but, surprisingly, he took his word for it. He nodded his approval, and Peter picked up his bag off the floor and slung it over his shoulder. He slipped on some tennis shoes, then was ushered out of his bedroom by the two Avengers.

Keeping his part of the deal, he kept his mouth shut as they crept through the hallway and passed Richard's closed bedroom door.

Something childish, something he shoved deep down and hoped wouldn't surface, wanted to yell out and pound on his door. He didn't, though. He held it together by reminding himself that now, in that situation, Richard didn't need a son. He needed a sacrifice, and Peter was willing.

They walked for a long time. They walked through the forest, creeping past Whelan and the other guards knocked out cold on the trail, along the same path Peter had used earlier as his temporary escape. They walked through a hole in the fence, one Peter assumed Iron Man had created when he and Captain America broke in.

Once they were outside the perimeter, Iron Man took his faceplate down, and although his armor stayed intact, he became a different person.

Tony Stark wasn't robotic like Iron Man. His eyes were tired, his jaw tight, his movements annoyed. He had a phone and he kept checking it, as if kidnapping Peter wasn't a threat to his safety, or at least not one worthy of his whole and undivided attention. That was a little insulting, sure, but Captain America grated at his nerves even more.

At least Stark had the decency to be properly stressed. Captain America was collected, he moved through the trees, the exposed roots and fallen branches with ease, even with just the tiny flashlight they used as their guide through the dark.

They came to stop when they got to a clearing, partly because Stark was checking his phone, and partly because, with horror, Peter realized they had reached their destination.

It was negative," announced Stark, making his phone disappear back into the Iron Man armor. What that meant, Peter wasn't sure, but he knew Stark didn't sound happy about it. Just more of the same. Just annoyed, and a little grumpy.

"That's good news, right?" asked Captain America. "You were just saying you weren't ready – "

"-Is that a plane?" Peter blurted out, interrupting them both. "I can't – I don't – I can't get on a plane."

"It isn't a plane. It's a jet, so you're good," said Tony. He reached out to grab Peter's arm, to tug him forward, but Peter took a step back.

He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. "I don't care what it is. I'm not getting on it."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

Stark stuck out a finger and waved at it around at him. "You're getting on that jet even if I have to put you on it."

"Tony – "

"Yeah, yeah, I got it in prep, okay, Cap? Be nice to the kid," said Stark. "Getting him the hell out of here is the nicest thing we could be doing, even if we have to use force."

Stark took a sudden stride forward, and Peter's reflexes got mixed up. He should've thrown another punch, but instead he froze in place. He flinched, and waited for the strike to come, but it never did. When Peter looked up, back at Stark, he was squinting back at him, the annoyance drained from his face, replaced with something else.

They stared at each other, and it was quiet. A breeze blew through the bare trees, Captain America shifted from foot to foot, somewhere a dog or a wolf howled. Nobody screamed.

Tony took a careful, slow step forward and grabbed his wrist, tugged him forward, towards the jet. "Come on."

Peter stepped up and climbed into the jet, and everything became real. What he was doing, what he was leaving behind, that he wasn't a sacrifice, but instead a clown. The sleep juices in his brain were gone. He was thinking clearly, so he knew if the Avengers had wanted Richard, they would've taken him, no matter what Peter did or didn't do.

Which meant he'd been the target all along, and he left willingly, without a sound, with leaving any clue who'd taken him or where he was going.

"You tricked me," said Peter, sitting down and looking up at Tony Stark, who only stared blankly as he sat down beside him.

Captain America, who disappeared behind the co-pilots chair, muttered something that sounded like, "So much for gaining his trust."

Someone replied back to him. Someone sitting behind the control panel. Whoever they were, Peter hoped they knew what they were doing when it came to flying a fancy Avenger jets. His stomach tightened just being inside of it, and when the engine revved to life, Peter's hands found the edges of his seat, his heart jumped around in his chest, his eyes darted around the small, dark space.

"Kid."

Peter met Tony's eyes.

"It's gonna be okay."

"My mom died in a plane crash."

If his father taught him anything, it was that there was a time for telling the truth and that time was usually around the very second when it would do the most damage, cause the most hurt. Peter had been aiming for guilt with his admission, but Tony's face remained blank in the darkness and he had no idea if he'd hit his mark.

"It's gonna be okay," he repeated. "My jets don't fall out of the sky."

Peter frowned, wondering if his arrogance was supposed to comforting, and frowning even deeper when he realized it actually kind of was. Still, he brought his legs up to his chest, buried his head into his knees, and hugged his legs as the jet lifted into the air.

Being terrified was one thing, but letting the enemy see him terrified was another, and if there was just one thing Peter was certain of about his new situation, it was that the Avengers were his enemies.

* * *

A/N: thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

There was a plant on Tony's workstation, and while he waited for the inevitable, it mocked him, with its droopy leaves and its melancholy attitude, with its very presence down in Tony's workshop in the Avenger's Compound.

The plant only had one job, to stay alive, and it was failing miserably. Dying just to mock him, probably, dying just because Tony was depending on it to stay alive.

Tony blamed the pregnancy scare.

He wouldn't even have a plant to worry about if Pepper's period hadn't been late, or if the test would have come back positive, or if he hadn't barged into Pepper's office days after the stick turned red, with wild dreams of actually, one day, becoming a father.

"You don't want a kid," Pepper had told him, before returning her stare back down on the tablet in front of her.

"No, see," said Tony. "I _didn't _want one, when you thought you might be pregnant, but now that we know you're not – I just got to thinking about it, and a kid – well, a kid sounds like a great idea."

Pepper had tilted her head at him, paused a few beats, before her eyes flickered back and forth between him and the spikey, green plant that sat inside a brown pot on her desk. She stood, picked it up, then pushed it into his hands.

"Here, take this plant," she had told him. "If it's still alive in two weeks, we'll talk about a baby, but for now, please leave." She kissed his cheek. "You're distracting me, and I have a busy day."

That'd been three days ago, and with the way it was looking now, Tony doubted it'd make it through the week. A stupid, lifeless, plant. He wanted to swipe it off his workstation and down into the garbage can below, but he resisted.

Instead, he forced his eyes back to his computer screen, where the Compound's security footage was pulled up. He watched the inevitable, the teenage terror known as Peter Parker, creep through the hallways.

He did his best to keep his footwork light. He paused when halls came to an end. He peaked around corners, careful not to be seen. It made Tony feel kind of bad. He was trying so hard, and Tony was about to crush his efforts into the ground.

Tony shifted his attention to a second screen, where more surveillance footage played. He watched Peter walk towards a rickety fence in the middle of the woods, the same one that surrounded the Hydra house of horrors. Peter helped a bunny out of some plastic and gently placed him on the other side of the fence.

Tony paused it. He rewound, played it again, and tried to reconcile that boy to the one who was currently sneaking through the halls.

It'd been a week since the rescue, since they yanked him out of Hydra hell, and it'd been nothing but drama ever since.

Tony supposed he should've expected that, from the very first night, Peter wasn't going to make this easy, for himself, or for the Avengers.

Peter's legs had been visibly wobbly as when they had stepped off the jet, after the flight from the Hydra manor, so wobbly Tony offered his help and was flatly refused, with a glare and with a comment with so much bite it was as if Tony had spoken the words.

He had looked small. Just a frightened child in his pajamas and tennis shoes, shaking and being led to a small conference room on the Compound's first floor. They had asked him questions he refused to answer. They gave him food he refused to eat. That first night, they had given up and let the boy go to sleep, after assigning him a bedroom in Steve's suite.

The situation hadn't improved with sleep, though.

Peter's hunger strike, for instance, persisted the next couple of days, until Steve gave in and let him drink nutrient shakes instead of eating meals.

Escape attempts became a regular occurrence. There weren't any locks on Peter's door, or Steve's suite, but the Tower's security was smarter than locks. His movements were monitored, and there was always an Avenger assigned to watch out for him, assigned to take him back to bed, even if that meant shooting him with a tranquilizer and carrying him there.

Soon, Peter figured out he wasn't going anywhere fast, and switched up his tactics. He snuck out of his room only to explore the Compound, but he still tried escaping, in less obvious ways.

Steve came down with a mysterious bout of food poisoning that left him with his head in the toilet, puking for hours, so he quit leaving his food unattended. Washing his hair left him itching at his scalp, so he locked his toiletries up in a cabinet. Items went missing, only to turn up later in random places, and the Avengers, mostly Steve, were tired.

It was sort of like living with an angry ghost, except that ghost was a real, breathing teenager out to make their lives as miserable as possible. A ghost who was opening the door to Tony's workshop, and stepping inside, unaware that he could be seen.

Tony cleared his throat, loudly, and Peter jumped. He froze in place, his shoulders drooping down and his face falling. He took a couple of hesitant steps backwards while maintaining eye contact, then angled his body towards the door where he came, as if Tony planned on just letting him walk away.

"Hey," said Tony. "Hold it."

Peter stopped, turned back around, listened. He might have been a terror, but at least he was an obedient one. Tony couldn't figure out if it made him feel grateful or uneasy.

"Come over here."

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pajamas pants and shuffled across the floor with his head down, eventually sliding onto the stool next to Tony.

"Wanna explain why you're trying to sneak into my workshop?"

Peter shrugged, folded his arms together, rested them on the workstation, and stared straight ahead at the plant, seemingly determined not to look Tony's way.

"Well it was a stupid thing to do," Tony told him. "The only person who sleeps less than you around here is me."

"Your plant's dying," said Peter. "I thought you were supposed to be a genius. It needs sunlight to survive, and there aren't even any windows down here." Finally, he made eye-contact, then tilted his head at him. "Are you even watering it?"

"Uh excuse me, I _am_ a genius," said Tony, with a snap, realizing too late that it was a bit ridiculous to be offended by something an angry teenager said. "Are you really lecturing me about my plant?"

"Maybe you shouldn't have one if you can't take care of it."

"Uh huh," said Tony. He reached his arm down under the desk and found the two bottles of chemicals he'd put there earlier. He placed both in front of Peter, who grew a little pale. "That's what you're after, then? More ingredients to poison Steve's food with?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Can't fool me, kid, so do yourself a favor and knock it off. Give Steve a break, okay? Quit messing with his stuff."

Peter looked away from him, back at the plant on the desk. He went quiet and became still, leaving Tony to only wonder and guess at what he was thinking. The thing about Peter was that he wasn't that hard to figure, wasn't hard to look past what he chose to show other people and see that he was still just that scared child on a plane.

Just a kid who believe, with his whole heart and soul that Tony and the Avengers were the bad guys, and he'd been kidnapped.

"I know you don't actually want to hurt anyone; you would've done it by now," said Tony. "Just know that these tricks aren't helping you go anywhere. We're not gonna get scared off by these games."

"I won't do it again," said Peter, his voice soft. Tony would've almost believed it was sincere if it hadn't been followed by a question. "Have you heard anything? About my dad?"

"Nope. Not yet."

Maybe, someday, Tony would be able to tell this kid the truth, but today wasn't that day. All his questions, about why he was taken, what was happening with Hydra, what was happening with Richard, would have to go unanswered, at least for now.

It was just as well. Tony suspected Peter wasn't really ready to hear the truth, and probably wouldn't believe it if they told him.

"Okay, well," said Tony. "It's late. Let's get you back to bed."

"No, wait," said Peter. Tony paused, one foot on the ground and the other on the base of the stool. "I just thought – you know, maybe I can help you… with whatever it is you're doing."

Tony considered him, studied him with a look that made Peter start fidgeting, until he swiped his brown hair off his forehead and broke the silence.

"It's just really… loud, in my head. I can't really fall asleep."

Probably, it was the first honest sentence Peter had spoken since coming live at the compound. It'd be counterproductive to let it go unrewarded, so Tony handed him a wrench, and they got to work.

* * *

Steve was the next person to wander into Tony's workshop uninvited.

He had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was unkempt, sticking straight up and in wild directions. He moved slow, like a zombie, and he groaned like one when he saw Peter Parker passed out on the floor, with a wrench still locked tighter between his fingers.

"I set an alarm," said Steve, his voice raspy. "It was supposed to wake me up if he left his room."

"He disabled it."

The reply came quick, and even if Tony didn't know for sure if it was true, he believed it was. Having his help in the workshop the last couple of hours had clued him in. Peter incredibly intelligent, more so than they originally thought.

"Turns out Banner and I aren't the only resident geniuses around here anymore."

"That's… troubling," said Steve, scratching his head.

"Not more troubling than where he came from."

Steve nodded his head in agreement and took a seat on the same stool Peter had been using earlier. He yawned, covering his face with his hand, as he looked down at Peter fast asleep on the floor.

"I'm dropping him off at the raft tomorrow," said Steve, only elaborating when Tony nearly snapped his neck with a sudden turn to raise an eyebrow at him. "Just temporarily, I was hoping he'd settle down by now, before we have to go and finish this, but he's- "

"-Not settled."

"Yeah," said Steve. "And dangerous, if there's no one around to check his strength."

"The raft isn't a daycare, Cap."

"I don't like it either. But what else can we do?"

Tony watched as Peter's chest moved up and down, slow and steady and peaceful, at least in his sleep. He looked smaller, younger, less like a terror and more like someone who'd be terrorized. The raft wasn't an option for him. Putting the kid in a high security prison was no way to win his trust, to prove to Peter that they weren't the bad guys here.

"I'll stay behind this time," said Tony. "I'll watch him."

"Tony," said Steve. "We need everyone on this."

"You don't really. The one threat we were worried about has been removed from the situation."

_And was an actual child. _

That part remained unspoken but echoed around in the room anyway.

When they'd intercepted the message that a new weapon was being transferred to the very Hydra base they were looking to raid, it'd almost ruined their plans. Almost. They intercepted more messages, and with each one, they learned more, like the weapon wasn't really a weapon, but a boy.

A boy the Avengers resolved to remove from the equation before he ever step foot inside the base, for two reasons.

The first was to save an innocent kid from being turned into the Winter Solider 2.0, and the second was even simpler. They needed him out of the crossfire. Nobody wanted to fight a kid, or hurt one, if it came to that, and at the time, they didn't have a clear understanding about his powers.

Oftentimes Tony wondered if even Peter had a clear understanding of his powers, if he even knew his own strength, or if he'd been so beaten down he was holding something back.

"Richard sure did a number on his boy, didn't he?" asked Steve.

"That's not even the worst part," said Tony. Steve met his eyes. "The worst part is when he realizes what's happened. How it was supposed to be."

The image of Peter flinching instead of fighting back became clear in Tony's mind. He didn't think he'd ever forget, as it was colored with guilt and filled with callbacks to all the times Tony had flinched.

"I guess you'll have to stay behind."

Tony nodded. It was the obvious solution, and clear to Tony just like not putting locks on the door had been clear. The boy was already wounded, nobody wanted to make the damage any worse than it already was.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah," said Tony. "Mind carrying him up to the suite?"

Steve gently pulled him up off the floor by one arm and slung him over his shoulder. To both their shock, Peter stayed asleep, only making a few inaudible noises.

Tony grabbed the plant on his desk, before him and Steve left the workshop and took the elevator up to Tony's suite.

Sun streamed in through the full windows that lined the wall of Tony's living room, the first clue for him about how long he and Peter had been working. He ditched the plant on the floor, right beside the window-wall, hoping it wasn't too late to save his plant and the bet with Pepper, while Steve gently put Peter on the couch.

He made a few more noises, shifted around a little bit, but ultimately, stayed asleep.

"Good luck, Tony."

"Yeah, you too. Don't get killed."

As Steve disappeared into the elevator, Tony wondered which of them had the hardest job. Steve, leading the Avenger's into a Hydra base, or Tony, left to watch over a disgruntled, super-powered teenager.

Tony unfolded a blanket and tossed it across the boy on his couch. He could do this, he told himself, he could definitely do this. Maybe he'd be better at taking care of a teenager than he was taking care of a plant.

* * *

"Alright, that's enough."

Tony stood in front of the couch, where Peter was still sleeping, even hours later and well into the afternoon, and Tony had had enough. It wasn't fair. If Tony had to be awake after an all-nighter, so did the kid. Hell, he didn't know, maybe waking him up would help him sleep at night.

Peter didn't wake, though. It was as if Tony hadn't said anything at all.

"Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty," said Tony, making his voice louder, and that time, nudging on his shoulder.

Peter groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

"Come on, kid, time to get up."

"Go away," mumbled Peter, rolling over on his stomach, and burying his face into the couch cushion.

Tony withdrew his hand and went away. He returned seconds later with a red plastic water gun Clint's own little terrors had left lying around the last time they visited. He sat on the coffee table, got comfortable, then pointed the gun at the back of Peter's head and pulled the trigger, over and over again, until Peter gave another muffled groan and sat up.

Peter glared at him. Tony shot water onto his face.

"Hey," said Peter, wiping his face clean. "Stop doing that!"

"Oh, you're awake," said Tony. "Good."

"Why do you even have that? What, are you four?"

"According to my fiancée."

Peter made a noise of disgust, and while he didn't go back to lying down, he did cover himself completely with the throw blanket, using it as some sort of shield against Tony and his water pistol. He looked around the suite, taking in his surroundings, before looking at Tony.

"This isn't Steve's suite."

"Nope," said Tony. "Much better taste, right? Steve's a bit dated, stuck in the past and all that."

Peter blinked at him, stared blankly, and waited for him to keep going.

"You're gonna be staying with me for a couple of days."

"Steve's tired of me?"

"Uh, no. He's going on a mission."

"Is it about Hydra?" asked Peter. "Are you arresting my dad?"

"Sorry, it's classified," said Tony, deciding to move on before Peter had a chance to ask any more questions. "What's not classified are my rules. One, if you mess with my food, I'm replacing your gross protein powder with asbestos."

"You wouldn't do that."

"Try me." Tony sprayed Peter in the face with the water gun twice, causing the boy to lunge forward and attempt to grab the gun. He fell back into the couch cushions with a single, gentle, push from Tony. "Two, my water gun, not yours."

Peter rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Tony wanted to give him a cookie for his normal teenager behavior. That was, if Peter was actually normal and would actually eat food that wasn't liquid and made out of powder.

"And three," said Tony. He extended his arm out and pointed the gun at the plant sunbathing in the window. "You're responsible for keeping the plant alive."

"You almost kill your plant and it's my job to keep it alive?"

"Yep. You clearly care about it more than I do, I think you'd do a better job taking care of it."

"I care?"

"Yeah."

Peter's face twitched several times and descended into what Tony assumed his own face looked like when he was trying to work out a tricky equation in the lab with Bruce. Only a couple of hours with the kid, and he'd already broken him. He had no idea what he said wrong, or how to fix it, and just started his spiral into regret about waking him up via water gun when Peter snapped out of it.

"I - I can handle that," said Peter. His voice was quieter, with less of an edge. "Have you given it any water yet?"

"Nope."

"I'll start there."

Tony sat on the coffee table while Peter got up and walked into the kitchen, where he searched for a cup and once he found one, filled it with water. Sun light was in Peter's hair as he kneeled down by the dying plant, carefully pouring water into the dirt it was rooted in, and Tony caught glimpse of the real Peter Parker.

He wasn't an angry ghost, or a frightened, flinching child, but quiet, gentle strength, the kind that helped rabbits and took care of plants. In a lot of ways, Peter, the real Peter, was better than Tony, better than most the Avengers, and Tony wondered how long it'd take to for all of Peter's pretending to wash away, for him realize what it was that separated him from his father.


	3. Chapter 3

"What do you think, Spike?" asked Peter. "Will he go for it?"

The plant on Peter's nightstand didn't reply. Its narrow, green leaves did wave around with the heat being pumped out through the bedroom vents, but that hadn't exactly answered his question. It only made him frown, made him worry all that hot air wasn't good for Spike.

Carefully, he gripped the edges of the nightstand and moved it, so it still sat in the sun, but away from the vents, then went back to what he'd been doing before breaking to have a conversation with a plant, pacing.

He walked back and forth, back and forth, working out a script in his head. He needed to get the words just right. He needed to be convincing, and Peter knew from just his brief time with him, Tony Stark wasn't convinced easily.

"Pete!"

Peter jumped, froze in place, and focused his ear. He heard the sizzle of the grill, heard the sound of grease popping.

"Lunch is ready!"

Tony didn't give up easily, either. He'd only been living with him a day, and there'd already been five attempts to get him to abandon his protein shakes and eat badly. He closed his eyes, took a breath to prepare himself, both for denying lunch and to make his request, before leaving Spike and the bedroom behind.

Tony stood in the kitchen, behind a counter-top grill. He held a spatula, and he was using it to take two burgers off the grill and slide them onto plates.

"Ready to eat?"

Peter dropped his shoulders and slid on one of the stools lining the island in the kitchen. It was sort of getting exhausted, refusing to have meals with him over and over again. The truth was, the food, the real food, smelled sort of good.

"Cheeseburgers are almost ready."

"No thanks," said Peter. "I'm good with my shake."

"Suit yourself, kid," said Tony. "But you're missing out."

Peter shifted around on the stool and watched Tony quietly assemble his burger. That was the strange thing about Tony. He always asked, always made extra food, but he was too weak to push, too feeble to enforce his own will. It bothered Peter, in a way, that it was easier to exist around the man that kidnapped him than it was his own father, who'd never allow Peter even the chance to say no.

Richard didn't ask questions. He shouted out orders, that were obeyed and obeyed immediately, unless you wanted a short-lasting, but painful, black-eye or something heavy thrown at you.

Tony smashed the top bun down on the burger and took a bite, and Peter considered abandoning the dietary rules his dad had set for him. He remembered a time when it was different, when he ate regular food his mom cooked for him, but then she was gone and he got bit by a spider and Richard declared Peter's body a machine, something that ran only the super-nutrients packed into the powder he manufactured.

He might as well, a voice in Peter's head told him. The stuff the Avengers were supplying him with to make protein shakes wasn't the same, anyway, and probably wasn't as good as the stuff his dad made. But in the end, as tempting as it was, Peter knew he couldn't.

Someday his dad would send rescue, probably in the form of a few dozen Hydra agents. Someday he'd be back living with the same rules, so he might as well stick to them now.

"Something on your mind?" asked Tony, abandoning his burger, only to dump some chips on his plate.

"Um," said Peter, his mouth suddenly dry, the speech he'd been preparing earlier suddenly missing from his mind. "I just – I need to use the internet."

"Why?"

"I need to do some research," Peter answered. "And figure out what species Spike is."

"Who the hell is Spike?"

"The plant."

"Spike the plant," said Tony, bobbing his head up and down. "I like it, but you already know the problem with you using the computers." Peter did know. He'd heard it before from him and Steve both, about a thousand times. "We can't have you sending messages to anyone."

"Aren't you a genius?"

"Why do you keep bringing that into question?"

"You could just block me from sending message. Problem solved."

"I could," said Tony, as though it'd been on his mind from the beginning. "I'll tell you what, kid." He abandoned his plate of food and turned back towards the grill, one the lone plate with the lone burger sat. He grabbed it, turned back around, and placed it in front of Peter. "Just eat half, and I'll build you something you can use for your plant research."

Peter looked down at the burger, the smells hitting him again. He wondered if Spike was worth betraying his dad's rules. He wondered if his dad would ever even be able to find out, once they were back together, that he'd broken them. If he ever got back to Richard, who'd tell him? Peter sure as hell wouldn't.

"Fine, deal," said Peter, keeping his voice stiff, careful not to let on this was a rule he was happy to break.

For Spike, of course, and for his sanity, he assembled a cheeseburger, mimicking all the same steps Tony had taken until it was finished. Peter opened his mouth, and took a bite, ignoring the way Tony had stopped eating to stare at him.

He chewed slowly, mystified by the flavors exploding in his mouth. They weren't chalky or metallically. They were savory, and they forced Peter to take his next bite quicker, forced him to eat more than half of the cheeseburger.

* * *

Peter had chills, then he was sweaty. He wanted his blanket, then he didn't, and so it went, throughout the late hours of the night.

He lay perfectly still on the bed in Tony Stark's guest room, with his face planted into the pillow and one eyeball staring across the dark room at Spike, as if looking at him might bring some sort of comfort, as if Spike had the ability to put the fire out in his belly.

He didn't, though, of course he didn't. Spike was just a plant, useless against the fiery knots tightening in his stomach, knots that made Peter hold his breath and wish away. He wasn't going to get sick. He wasn't. He was determined to beat whatever poison that wormed its way into his system via cheeseburgers, by sheer force of will

That was sort of the problem, Peter realized, throwing off the blankets and swinging his feet onto the ground. As Richard was always reminding him, his will wasn't strong enough to beat anything. He made to the bathroom in time to shove his head in the toilet and puke, and by the time he was raising his head out and flushing the toilet, Tony stood in the doorway of the bathroom, his face ceased in a way Peter hadn't seen before.

An expression that was mysterious and unknown, or at least, long forgotten. It cut him deep, and he looked away.

Tony, on the other hand, began to freak out.

He guided him into the suite's living room, pushed him down on the couch and pressed a cold washcloth on his forehead with an order not to touch it. He started pacing around, and Peter wished he would cut it out, it was making him dizzy, but Tony didn't stop. If anything, he got faster, pulling a phone from his pocket and pressing it against his ear as he walked back and forth.

"What do I do if a kid gets sick?"

"Tony," said the tired voice on the other end. Peter was eavesdropping, he didn't care. It took his mind off how miserable he was. "Is this your way of telling me that you changed your mind and you don't actually want a baby?"

"This isn't hypothetical, Pep," said Tony. "I have a kid and he's puking his guts out."

"You have a what?"

"I'm babysitting – "

"-not a baby," Peter mumbled out.

"He's just thrown up and now he's just lying on my couch, spitting out nonsense and looking miserable."

Peter stopped listening in to their conversation and went back to his misery, remembering the last time he felt this way, right after the incident with the spider. He'd gotten a fever, just like he was sure he had now, and he'd thrown up, a lot. He was left in his room, sweating it out on his twin bed, while Richard checked up on him from time to time to ask him clinical questions and scribble on his clipboard, stoic and unmoved.

Not at all like Tony Stark, who was currently having a meltdown in his own home, when he wasn't even the who with the fever. He must've been broken in a way Richard wasn't, Peter decided, he must've been a much weaker man.

"Pep said I need to get your temperature," said Tony, as he slid his phone back in his pocket. "But I don't have a thermometer, so we're just gonna skip that step and I'm gonna take you straight to the medcenter."

Peter forced himself to sit up without a word, deciding the only way to get Tony to stop talking and walking so fast was to comply.

* * *

"I'll never eat another cheeseburger again," Peter moaned.

He was sandwiched between a mountain of blankets and the medical bed, curled into a ball, and clutching his arms around his belly, while he and Tony waited for the doctor to come back and tell them what disease was currently killing him. It was mostly formality. Peter was pretty sure what caused the fire in his stomach.

"You put asbestos in my food," added Peter, since his original comment hadn't earned a response. Tony had gone strangely calm, strangely quiet, and Peter missed the noise. It helped distract him from his pain.

"I was joking," said Tony, evenly. He straightened out in his chair, leveling his gaze at Peter. "I'd like to think you know me better than that."

"Why would I? We're practically strangers."

"Yeah," said Tony. "You're right, so let's get to know each other. I'll start. I'm Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, ex-playboy. I like building things and Black Sabbath. Now it's your turn. Go."

"Peter Parker," he grunted out. "The kid you kidnapped and poisoned."

"You forgot to mention what you like."

Peter opened his mouth, then shut it. His brain sputtered out, searching for an answer to what should be a simple question, but coming up empty each time.

"I don't like anything," said Peter, and that felt like the truth. If he couldn't come up with an answer, it must be.

"Oh, come on, of course you do," said Tony. "What do you miss from home?"

His mother, easily. He missed her, but she wasn't around anymore, wasn't home, so maybe she didn't count.

"Can we stop talking now? It makes everything hurt worse."

"Okay, kid," said Tony, always quick to back off. There was a softness to his voice that annoyed him. It sounded a lot like pity. "Whatever you say."

Peter hugged himself a little tighter, shivering even under all the blankets Tony had piled on top on him. He repeated a mantra in his head, over and over again, promising to appreciate feeling normal so much more if he could just get back to feeling that way. He repeated it like a prayer, as if some god somewhere was listening, and would decide to make it all go away.

The fever, the stomach pains, the feeling of emptiness that had crept up inside him and settled after Tony had asked his question.

"Well, I have good news," said Dr. Banner, stepping back inside the room. "It wasn't the cheeseburger. Just a stomach bug. Completely normal, and with your healing rate, you'll probably be feeling better tomorrow, even."

Peter didn't know if that made him feel better or worse. Tomorrow was soon, but also incredibly far away.

"So, just to be clear, the food was just a coincidence?" asked Tony, standing up for the chair. "There wasn't asbestos in his system?"

Peter shot Tony an annoyed look, and Dr. Banner scratched his head.

"Uh, no, no asbestos," he told him. "But maybe next time start him out with something a little less greasy? While he's transitioning back to solid food it's probably better to keep it simple."

Dr. Banner gave him a speech about resting and staying hydrated, before turning to Tony to tell him that he was going to bed and unless he wanted to speak to the other guy, he wouldn't wake him up in the middle of the night. Peter didn't know exactly what that meant, but it was enough for Tony to give a small nod and promise it wouldn't happen again.

* * *

After the tortuous walk back up to the Stark suite, Peter was completely zapped of his energy. He didn't even have enough energy to make it back to the guestroom, so instead, he collapsed on the couch, burrowing down into the cushions and savoring the way the cool fabric felt against his burning, hot skin.

Not long after Tony was coming at him, in multiple trips, with pillows, blankets, a water bottle, a packet of crackers, and the last item, a tall glass filled with ice and something clear and fizzy. A straw hung out from the top.

"What's that?" asked Peter, as Tony put it down on a T.V. tray, next to the other items.

"It's 7up," said Tony. "Jarvis used to give it to me when I was sick. Helps settle the stomach."

Peter stared it, unsure anything was possible of making him feel better.

"Try it, you might find out you like."

He was skeptical, but now curious enough to take a slow, hesitant sip. Cold, refreshing, different from the cheeseburger, but miles away from the chalky protein shakes he was beginning to despite. He took another sip through the straw while Tony turned on the TV and settled down on the armchair.

"Alright kid, what will it be? What do you wanna watch?"

Peter didn't want to admit watching TV and movies was another thing he wasn't quite familiar with. It was a luxury that left the manor when his mother died, just like so many other things.

"You pick."

"Don't have to tell me twice," said Tony.

Tony ended up picking a really old movie called the Breakfast Club, and it turned out to be pretty interesting. There were kids close to his age. They went to school, something so normal for the kids on the screen they had the luxury to complain about it, whining when they got in trouble and had to be there an extra day.

"I think I would've liked school," said Peter, thinking back to Tony's question, as the movie continued to play. "If I'd ever gotten the chance to go."

"Yeah, you do sort of seem like a nerd."

Peter turned his head to look at Tony and found him grinning back, no venom behind his words. A joke, he guessed, and maybe a true one. Maybe he would've been a nerd. Maybe that was an identity he could cling too, so he could stop feeling so empty inside.

"You might still get the chance," said Tony. "You're barely old enough for high school. There's still time."

Peter fell silent and didn't talk the rest of the movie. When the Breakfast Club ended, Tony turned on a different movie, another one about a kid Peter's age.

He didn't get to watch the entire movie, because Dr. Banner had been right. His stomach pains were subsiding fast, and without the edge of pain keeping him awake, his eyelids were heavy and hard to keep open.

He drifted off, listening to Ferris Bueller lie his way out of going to school, listening to the calming, annoying comforting sound of Tony's occasional chuckle. He faded in and out of dreams absent of any screaming, but instead filled with walking down hallways lined with lockers and having fantastic adventures in a giant city, surrounded by people who smiled and tall buildings that stretched miles into the sky.

* * *

The next morning, Peter woke up with a small smile on his face and with his stomach rumbling in hunger. Normal was back. He took a moment, as promised, and appreciated the marvelous feeling being normal, completely absent of the pain that made him want to puke his guts out.

He sat up, and looked around, losing his smile once he saw the armchair Tony had occupied empty. His stomach growled again, and he looked at the unopened pack of crackers on the TV tray.

They were just crackers, but they loaded with feelings.

It'd been nine days since he disappeared from the manor, nine days since he was spirited away in the middle of night. He was still here. Apparently, he wasn't worth the risk of rescue. Not even worth it to his own father to send a few agents to come and get him and bring him to the place they would have moved to if the Avengers hadn't gotten in the way.

Maybe it was childish to assume his father understood why he left and where he was, but at the same time, they weren't strangers. He should know Peter better than that, than to think he'd just run away if he wasn't being forced to, if he wasn't in danger.

Nine days made it feel like he wasn't even looking. Probably, he wasn't. Richard didn't have the time for that. His research and experiments were more important, Peter knew, but it didn't mean it hurt any less.

Peter opened the pack of crackers. He had one, then another, then five. Even plain, dry crackers were better than chalk he was used to. He washed them down with watered down 7up, then jumped up to find the TV remote.

He wanted to finish watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but he wasn't even past the ten-minute mark when the elevator dinged and Tony stepped off it, with a tablet in his hand.

"Hey, Pete," said Tony, looking around and surveying the living room. "I take it you're feeling better?"

Peter nodded his head.

"Good." said Tony. He held up the tablet to show it off. "I brought something for you."

Tony plopped down on the couch next to him and powered on the tablet. "This has everything you'll need. Internet, Netflix, YouTube so you can get caught up on all the memes – "

"What's a meme?"

"Uh, well," said Tony. "You know what? This feels wrong. We need to get you someone your own age to explain this shit."

Peter frowned and creased his face. He didn't understand what age had to do with defining a word, but he figured it was just another one of the Tony's oddities.

"Here, take it," continued Tony. He pressed the tablet into Peter's hands, and he accepted it. "I'm sure you'll be able to research everything you need to know about Spike on that."

"Thanks, Tony."

"Not a problem, kid. Just a warning for you, though, you try sending any message out on it, if you try hacking it, you'll brick it and I'll get an alert, got it?"

Peter nodded. He didn't have anyone to send any messages, too, anyway. Richard certainly didn't care.

"Good, now," said Tony, his eyes drifting down towards the crackers. "Should I make us a proper breakfast?"

Peter didn't hesitant before nodding again, and Tony didn't hesitant zooming off to the kitchen, no doubt ready to capitalize on his willingness to eat.

While Tony prepared their breakfast, Peter wandered off to the guestroom to check on Spike. He was standing a little taller that morning, looking a bit greener and fresher and healthy. Peter supposed he did like something after all. He liked Spike.

The plant was at the top of his list, right above 7up when his stomach ached and the Breakfast Club and who knew what else. He'd have a lot of time to figure it out, because if there was one thing Peter was sure about, it was that rescue wasn't coming for him anytime soon, and the worse part, he wasn't even sure if he cared that it wasn't.

* * *

A/N: I know! it's been awhile! just know i plan on finishing the fic and if you want to read ahead, i usually post on ao3 first! under the same screen name (i just posted chapter 5 over there today))

thank you so much for reading! i'm hoping to post the other two chapter later tonight and tomorrow, then after that there's five left!


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